


Virago

by eldritcher



Series: The Heralds of Dusk [9]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-25
Updated: 2015-05-25
Packaged: 2018-04-01 06:47:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4009954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eldritcher/pseuds/eldritcher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the sun slipped away, the woman could weep alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Virago

The white sails of Telerin ships were still marked by the same insignia of Olwë’s coat of arms. She grasped the railings and tried to steer herself into the land of no emotion even as Círdan steered the vessel into the harbour of Alqualondë. Impassive Telerin sailors stood on the docks. A strangled gasp fled her throat as her mind relived the sequence of events which had upturned her life.

“I promised you that we would alight on these shores together,” said her companion and a pair of arms coiled familiarly about her waist, coaxing her back against a soft tunic through which the warmth of his chest permeated reassuringly. 

“They will not draw sword,” Thranduil was telling Gildor confidently. 

 

“They will not draw sword,” her father had said confidently as Turgon expressed his fears that the Teleri might not give their ships without a battle. “They are sailors, not warriors.”

 

“Altáriel.”

The single utterance was insufficient to draw her away from those dark memories. But she pasted a smile on her lips and turned to face him, wilfully lighting the depths of her eyes with the merry sparkle that he had fallen in love with. 

“Have I ever feared?” she asked him.

“I doubt it,” he replied gallantly, his eyes mirroring his sincerity. “I have never deserved you, you know.”

She managed a flattered expression. 

 

“I don’t deserve this,” had said Maglor as he watched his brother throw him a fond look during a family feast. 

 

He had been wrong, she knew now. Maedhros Fëanorion had not deserved the uncomplicated regard Maglor bore him. And Galadriel knew that she deserved not Celeborn’s love. Yes, Maglor had married and Celeborn had strayed. But their hearts had remained true and they had not changed, unlike those they loved. 

The pungent scent that defined Alqualondë’s docks - a mix of fish, rotting algae and deadwood - crept into her nostrils. She glared at her finely trembling fingers until the shuddering subsided. Then she looked down proudly at those who waited on the docks and she was Galadriel once again.

She could hear Círdan’s men calling out instructions to each other. She could hear the dull clank of the slowly lowered anchor as it struck the hull of the vessel. She could hear Thranduil’s speech on the various uses of fishing nets in settings more intimate. He was making them laugh, she noticed. Even pensive Glorfindel had let loose a gale of mirth as Thranduil regaled them with a suitably unsuitable risqué tale from his wild youth that involved fishing nets, oars and sailor’s knots. 

“Remind me to ask around about his mother,” Celeborn was telling her. “I need to know where he inherited his uninhibited nature from.”

She knew. There had been a man, coarse of nature and speech, who had exploited a blind law to take a woman to wife. It was his blood that flowed in Thranduil. 

“I have not told you before.” Celeborn spoke again, hesitantly. “My parents and my aunt - she is Thranduil’s grandmother - they live in Valmar. They came with Oromë.”

She nodded and shot him a warm smile. To watch others drown in dreams born of ignorance, perhaps that was the greatest curse of foresight. 

 

“My husband loves me,” she had told Maedhros in Doriath. “He is loyal.”

His eyes had turned a darker shade of grey before he changed the subject. They had met again, in Balar, and her husband had gained a reputation by then for his wandering lust. 

“You knew,” she had shouted at Maedhros. “You knew and you did not tell me!”

He had shaken his head and said in a tone of quiet misery, “I could not bring myself to destroy your peace.”

 

She had not understood him then. But now, as Celeborn spoke thoughtfully, wistfully and reverently of his parents and kinswoman, she understood her cousin’s words. She would not tell Celeborn the truth. It would be hers to bear. She could not bide the thought of destroying his hope. 

“I had always known in my heart that there would come a day when I was reunited with them,” Celeborn said.

There would come a day when her pretences failed. But he would forgive her, she knew. And the thought made her resolve falter.

“Naneth!” 

“Bría!” 

Galadriel felt her fingers tremble again as Erestor and Thranduil began shouting greetings to her child. She could not bring herself to look upon the dear features that resembled Celeborn so.

What did Celebrían think of her now? Galadriel had wrested with Irmo for months on end to impart her memories into her child’s mind. Memories dark, shameful and bitter that would do nothing to flatter Celebrían’s opinion of her. But Galadriel knew she had to do that to spur Celebrían to save Maglor. It had been necessary.

 

“It was necessary,” Maedhros had said as she treated his abused body after Maglor’s marriage. 

“I hardly think that flagellation of your convalescing body by Findekáno was an appropriate wedding present for your brother,” she had remarked. “You will notice that I did nothing of the sort though I find myself in the same quandary as yours.”

“It is not the same!” he had protested, gripping her wrist and forcing her to meet his eyes. 

Maglor had called those eyes silver. Elrond was fond of comparing them to clouds. Telpe had called them the colour of steel. But Galadriel was not a poet, nor was she a mistress of lore or a craftswoman. She had always thought that those eyes were grey - tainted - perfectly illustrating the owner’s indecision between white and black, between death and life, between sin and redemption. 

“It is not the same and you know that, Artanis,” Maedhros had repeated. “It is necessary.”

 

Was it necessary because he felt compelled to suffer a portion of the pain he had unwittingly inflicted on his brother when Maglor’s regard had been unveiled accidentally? Or was it because he needed an outlet from self-hatred? She had not understood him. Nor had she understood herself when she had worn herself gaunt and barely lucid after repeated struggles each night in Irmo’s battleground. But she knew it had been necessary.

Celeborn’s strong hand guided her unresisting form down the length of the deck. 

“Look cheerful, my dear lady! You are home,” Elrond was gently chiding her, and she was momentarily distracted by the concern in his eyes. 

“I am not meant to look cheerful,” she rallied with a smile. “I am mourning that Celeborn would soon start straying hither and thither in the midst of such a wide selection as is on offer here.”

The hand guiding her tweaked her arm to express Celeborn’s indignation. But Elrond laughed and then said, “Perhaps Gildor should fear the same.”

“I never stray,” Thranduil cut in. “Really, Elrond! I was not the engaged herald who snuck into an innocent prince’s bed chamber!” 

“Said innocent prince indulged in carnality as he pleased under the pretence of chasing dreams away,” Celeborn noted.

Galadriel thought of Fëanor seeking Fingolfin every night. She remembered how Maedhros had exploited Fingon’s brand of carnality claiming that he needed it. He had been lying, she knew. Maedhros had never craved pain. But he had wanted - no, needed - sensation powerful enough to defeat the suffocating grip of dreams. When he had foresworn Fingon, he had embraced sleepless weeks and the occasional sedative induced stupor that brought him blissful unconsciousness instead of a restful night. She had known the same grip of Irmo and she had preferred to brew herself powerful sedatives that dulled her senses instead of delivering her to dreams. Her indulgence with those draughts was sapping her strength even as it had sapped Maedhros through the years. They spoke of how he had deteriorated rapidly after the guilt-ridden massacre in Doriath. But she had known the truth and had kept his secret as he had kept hers. It was his dependence on opiates of the Easterlings and of the people of Marach that had hastened his ill-health. 

 

“I cannot manage,” he had said baldly when she chided him. “It is difficult when I am on the war-fields and at the negotiating tables ridden by sleeplessness and a lack of concentration. I need my mind, Artanis. For that, I need the draughts. It is either carnality depraved enough to kill my senses or the draughts. I will not - I cannot - let my brother drain Findekáno’s chalice.”

She had remained silent, horrified by his plain confession. He had thawed then, and softened his voice before saying, “You know what poison Moringotto injected in me. I will die, that is a surety. All I intend to ensure is that I die on my feet at a time when I am ready. I cannot bear the thought of my mind trapped in a useless body, cousin. I will not rot.”

 

“Careful, my dear,” Thalion was telling her as they helped her down the rope rungs to the small boat that waited to carry them ashore.

“I am always careful, Thalion,” she reassured him.

She was careful to ensure that none knew of her dependence on those draughts. She was careful to ensure that secrets remained secrets. She was careful to let none know that there was a woman beneath the virago.

She pushed away Celeborn’s steadying hand and rose to a standing position on the boat. Boats, with their tendency to bob up and down with the waves, had always made her nauseous. 

 

“My dear girl!” Olwë had laughed as she cried and demanded that he take her ashore immediately. “It is only a boat!”

“I hate it, Grandfather!”

She had been ensconced in his strong arms and he had kissed her cheek saying, “Anything for my little princess.”

 

She could not help her eyes straying to her palms. Imagination - what a loathsome gift it was - she could see his blood on her palms. She had scraped off the skin with her brother’s knife, scraped it off and washed her hands in the seawater until the raw flesh had stopped bleeding. 

 

“What are you doing?” 

Aredhel had pulled her to her feet and blanched as she saw the self-mutilation. But Aredhel did not ask anything of her. She merely tore off Maglor’s cloak and wound tight the fabric over the hands.

 

“Nearly there,” Elrond was murmuring, and she noticed that his hand was on Erestor’s wrist.

A western wind blew from Taniquetil and her hair caught the sunlight. 

 

“The sun is defiant from dawn to dusk,” Maedhros had remarked once. “But who knows what it does in the lonely recesses of the night? Burn before the world and weep alone.”

 

“A virago,” Glorfindel was muttering under his breath. “I have never known her to be daunted in the face of anything.”

Yes, that was what she was under the sun. When the sun slipped away, the woman could weep alone.

* * *


End file.
